Surface maintenance vehicles and cleaning devices have a long history subject to gradual innovation and improvement toward improved and oftentimes automated performance in removing debris and contamination from floors. These vehicles and devices may be self-powered, towed, or pushed, and/or manually powered and may carry a human operator during cleaning operations. Such vehicles and devices include scrubbers, extractors, sweepers and vacuums, as well as combinations thereof, intended for cleaning, scrubbing, wiping and/or drying a portion of a substantially flat surface both indoors and outdoors. Many such vehicles and devices employ a squeegee assembly for removing solution from a floor which has been cleaned by application of a cleaning solution of water and a detergent in conjunction with scrubbing action of one or more moving brushes. Accordingly, the squeegee assembly of such prior art cleaning vehicles often mounts at or near the rear of the surface maintenance vehicle to direct the solution to a removal location where the solution (including suspended dirt, particles and contaminants) is removed. The cleaning solution is typically supplied to the floor surface through or near rotary scrub brushes operating from a lower portion of the vehicle. The squeegee assembly may include a squeegee supporting member of generally arcuate configuration with two squeegee blades spaced apart and affixed to the supporting member to promote consistent contact with the surface to be cleaned and wiped.
The prior art includes surface maintenance vehicles having portable wands for debris collection away from the vehicle. Typically, the wands require the operator to connect the portable wand into a vacuum system via a stored hose. A valve is often used to control vacuum pickup via the portable wand. The valve is accessed to control vacuum supplied to the wand.
A drawback of the prior art systems includes the cumbersome and sometimes tedious procedure through which a portable vacuum wand is inserted into the vacuum system of the floor surface maintenance machine.